Radio Times cover from 1987 courtesy of Radio Times

The eighties for me – speaking as a person who has Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine and Type O Negative on her mp3 player – was a time of torture musically and as this clip from Top of the Pops Christmas special from 1983 ably demonstrates, I had every reason to be horrified…

It makes me shudder…

Christmas 1984 was dominated by the Band Aid single, Do They Know It’s Christmas. Here it is complete with horrifically big hair and appalling jackets pushed up the forearms of the super-cool artists of the time..

And if you’re watching David Van Day in I’m a Celeb at the moment, did you know he was a member of Bucks Fizz in the late eighties? Here the band are pre-David on the 1983 TOTP Christmas special.

The eighties show Strike It Lucky, hosted by Michael Barrymore, made several Christmas specials and here’s a clip from one of them with lots of little kids being very cute

And do you remember TV AM the forerunner to GMTV? Here’s a clip from Christmas Day in the eighties but you have to fast forward the first 60 seconds or so to get to it. In it, Anne Diamond remarks that she doesn’t really like mince pies. She later went on to become very fond indeed of pies…

If you remember that, you’ll probably remember that TV channels used to close down overnight, so here from 1984 is BBC’s Christmas closedown sequence…

This clip is of the end of Blankety Blank on Christmas Day 1984 and an introduction to other BBC shows that day and the start of the Hi De Hi special…

And here’s what you would have watched on BBC1 on Christmas day in 1987

ITV’s Christmas night line up that year featured Dennis Norden and Inspector Morse…

Here’s Christmas day on 1988 featuring trailers and the news about the Lockerbie disaster and the Christmas weather

The Mike Yarwood show was a vital component to Christmas in the eighties and here he is at the end of his show in 1981. The clip leads on to what’s on ‘Holiday Monday’ on BBC1 including Grange Hill, Val Doonican, Terry and June and Only Fools and Horses

The Two Ronnies also made Christmas over that decade and here’s a clip from their 1982 special…

As did Morcambe and Wise…

The soaps had some brilliant Christmas episodes in the 80s and here’s one of my favourite clips from the scene in Eastenders where Den hands Angie divorce papers…

Crossroads was in full swing in the 80s too. Here’s a clip from the 1980 Christmas episode

You may well have received a Sinclair Spectrum in the eighties as a pressie. See it advertised here…

And have a look at the pressies Woolies were trying to sell us in 1982

And 1983…

Or maybe you bought your festive booze from Asda…

But if you were a kid in the 80s, this He Man and She Ra special was probably on your must-see list…

You more than likely watched the Rainbow Christmas special too in 1987. See the end of and some ads here…

And T Bag’s special in 1988 starring Elizabeth Estensen who now plays Diane in Emmerdale

Do you have any fond memories of TV shows at Christmas in the 80s?